


in the shadow of your heart

by Qzil



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Afterlife, Angel True Forms, Demon True Forms, F/M, Kissing, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 23:36:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10955085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qzil/pseuds/Qzil
Summary: Meg greets Castiel when he reaches the afterlife.





	in the shadow of your heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [teaandchess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaandchess/gifts).



> Let the afterlife fics commence. This is Tea's fault. All of it.

Castiel blinked.

He’d died. Or, at least, he thought he had. He could remember the horrible, blinding pain of being struck from behind. It had been similar to the other times he had died, and yet it had been different. There had been a certain finality to it. This time, he could feel his power ebb away, feel his very grace and essence bleed into the soil along with his vessel’s blood.

The other times he’d died, he’d had no memory of the in-between. He was gone one second and back the next.

This time, however, he had no idea where he was. It was neither dark nor light, and reminded him more of twilight than anything. The land itself was featureless. He could make out blurred shapes in the distance, but had no idea what they could be. Closest to him there was nothing except for dirt under his bare feet. But even that felt different, not quite soil or clay or rock, but instead a strange mixture of the three, and almost colorless. He thought it was completely quiet, but after a moment he heard the distant, soft sounds of waves crashing on a beach, although he could neither see nor smell any water, and found it calming.

Finally, he noticed that he was still wearing his last vessel, and that he was completely naked.

“It’s easier for everyone. You can change it later,” said a familiar, feminine voice.  

Castiel whirled around at the sound of Meg’s voice. Disbelief, relief, and embarrassment went through him all at once. Disbelief that he was seeing her again. Relief to see the demon that had watched over him for all those months and that he’d never gotten to say goodbye too. Embarrassment when he recalled their last conversation, and when Meg looked at his body with glittering, appreciative eyes.

She looked different than she had in life. Her hair was dark again, and seemed to swirl around her body as if she was underwater. She was naked, too, and standing just a few feet away from him, head cocked to the side like a cat contemplating pouncing on a bug.

“So you got yourself killed, huh?” Meg asked.

“Is that where we are?” he questioned.

“We think so, yeah,” she said.

“We?”

Meg gave him a small smile. “Yeah, everyone. We’re all here. Anna was going to be the one to come meet you, but I argued her down. Your sister’s a tough cookie, but I like her. And I figured I might not get to see you for a while if they got ahold of you first.”

“Anna’s here?” Castiel looked around, half hoping his sister would walk out of the gloom.

“Yeah, and Balthazar. He’s been wanting to talk to you for ages,” Meg told him. “But, really, they’ll fill you in on most of it.”

Castiel felt a sudden stab of guilt when he thought of Balthazar and Samandriel and all of the other angels that he had killed during his long life and swallowed hard. “He’s here, too?”

“And Rachel, and a lot of others. They all want to talk to you. Hael’s been pissed for ages,” Meg informed him.

“How do you know all of them?”

Meg shrugged began to walk toward him, her hair swaying above her shoulders. “Whatever this is, this afterlife, it’s only for angels and demons. You get a lot of time to make peace with each other. When Ruby and Anna both got here, they talked, and it kind of got the rest of us talking, I guess. Especially once a few of your siblings found out that you and I were tight back on Earth.” Meg reached him, stopping less than a foot away, and frowned. “Daddy wasn’t too happy about that, of course, but he and I have had time to talk. There’s really not much else to do here.”

“Why would God put angels and demons in the same place?” Castiel wondered. Meg shrugged and looked up at him, a familiar smirk on her face.

“I don’t have all the answers, Clarence,” she teased, slipping into one of her heavily-accented voices that she had teased him with back on Earth.

He looked into her eyes. This close, there was something slightly off about her skin, almost as if it was translucent. But her eyes were clear, were still the same warm brown that he’d looked into for months at the hospital, and suddenly he wasn’t embarrassed by their mutual nakedness or how close they were.

Castiel took a tentative step forward, closing the gap between them. If he leaned down, they would be nose to nose. As it was, he was taller than Meg still, so she had to look up at him.

“I missed you,” he breathed. “Sam and Dean never told me exactly what happened, but I suspected…”

“I knew you’d end up here sooner or later if you kept working with them,” Meg said. “Being around those two practically guarantees you a bloody end.”

Castiel didn’t know what to say to that. What Meg had said was, unfortunately, true. But beyond that, there were thousands of questions running through his mind. He wanted to ask about his family, about her family, wanted to ask what this place was and where the other angels were, wanted to ask how the rules of this particular afterlife worked.

And yet, he asked none of them, and found himself almost perfectly content to stand there and look down into her eyes, as if he had all the time in the world to do it and yet would never have the time to look at her enough.

She was the one who bridge the gap between them first, just as she had done in life, surging upward on her toes to kiss him. In life, their only kiss had been harsh and frantic, all sucking and moaning and, in his case, inexperience. But now she was almost gentle with him, as if unsure that he would kiss her back.

Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her upward. She was no lighter than a feather, so easy for him to pick up so she could wrap her legs around his waist and they could be the same height. Their kisses stayed soft and gentle, and Castiel was unsure how long he actually spent standing there, his arms wrapped around her waist. He felt as though he could never move and still be content, like he could kiss her forever and never want for anything else.

It was, in a sense, complete peace.

Meg was the one who pulled away, and he saw laughter dancing in her eyes.

“That happens, at first,” she said gently as she slid back to the ground. “We should go. Your sister won’t be very happy if I keep you all to myself.”

Castiel felt a stab of fear at the idea of having to face the other angels. But Meg simply took his hand.

“I’ll walk with you, but it is different here. Time’s all you have. You have to talk it out.”

“But I’ve done so many terrible things, Meg,” he protested.

“And you have to come to terms with that. I did. Dad did. Tom did. Your angel friends had to, too,” she soothed. “It will work out, eventually.”

Still, Castiel hesitated. “You mentioned that you might not get to see me again. Meg, I--”

“Sometimes it’s hard to find other people here,” she explained. “I’ve only seen glimpses of some demons and angels. Other times it’s easy. Ruby and Anna always find each other. I think you and I will, too. But you’re going to be busy for a while. You have a lot of catching up to do. They’re probably going to want to keep you all to themselves for a bit.”

“What if they hate me?” he asked. Meg’s face softened.

“Well, then you’ll have to come to terms with that,” she told him. “But they’ll find you sooner or later. You’ll have to face them, Castiel. We’ve all had to look at people that we’ve killed here. My own brother shot me while we were alive.”

“I never knew that.”

“I never told you.”

Slowly, Castiel reached out and took her hand. Despite the fact that they had kissed, he was still afraid that she would reject the gesture. Instead, Meg squeezed his hand back and began to lead him forward. The landscape around them didn’t change. The shapes in the distance stayed blurry. The strange twilight around the blue tinted land remained static.

“It’s a long walk,” Meg warned him.

Castiel only nodded. “You said that you can change your appearance here?”

Meg nodded back. “Yeah. It’s just easier for the transition if you still look like you did when you died, I think.”

“So we can…”

“Your true form won’t hurt me here,” Meg said softly. Her human appearance began to melt away as her demonic form bled through. Her skin, which had been nearly translucent, gave way to stiff, leathery flesh that stretched over her bones. Claws displaced her fingernails. Her legs changed shape at the calves, giving way to catlike feet that would support her on all fours as well as when she stood up straight.

Her tail curved around and smacked him on the bottom.

“Go on and try,” she encouraged. “Just let it out.”

Castiel closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He could almost feel his body shifting around him, could almost feel it growing taller and his heads multiplying. It was not painful, or particularly unpleasant. Instead, he felt almost as if he was taking off a particularly heavy coat and a pair of shoes that were too small after a long day.

When he opened his eyes, he was far taller than Meg was. She smiled at him, and took the time to lean up and give each of his heads a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Wow,” she breathed. “That’s something.”

She held her hand out for him, and he took it, his long fingers completely enveloping her clawed ones. Smoke poured from her mouth when she smiled at him. They began to walk, Meg lightly swinging their hands back and forth.

“So, fill me in on what’s been happening,” she requested.

Smiling, he did.

 


End file.
